Bait & Switch (31 page)

“No.” Mitch figured it wouldn’t hurt to try to find an ally anywhere he could get one. “I stopped by to ask your husband to drop the charges against my brother.”

“Someone filed charges against Mitch?” Her eyes went as wide as the Charleston harbor. “What criminal activity is
he
involved in?”

“Mitch isn’t involved in any criminal activity,” Mitch said, then shook his head. He was so confused he was referring to himself in the first person. “I mean that
I’m
not involved in criminal activity. Except as a cop trying to prevent it. I’m Mitch.”

“That’s what I gathered when you asked me for the same considerations your brother just got through asking for,” the solicitor said, crossing his leg.

“Cary’s already been here?” Mitch asked.

The solicitor’s affirmative answer was nearly drowned out by Amelia’s gasp of surprise.

“Oh, my goodness. No wonder nobody can tell the two of you apart. Are you the one Peyton loves or is that your brother?”

Mitch swallowed painfully. “I’m afraid Peyton would say she isn’t in love with either one of us.”

“Are you sure, dear? I thought that was why she was so resistant to Gaston, although in retrospect I suppose that was a good thing. Who would have guessed a young man from a respected Charleston family like his could go so wrong?”

“I am sure about Peyton.” Mitch turned to Peyton’s father, hoping to avoid any additional references to the love Peyton no longer had for him. “When was Cary here?”

“Left about an hour ago,” the solicitor said. “He wanted to know if I’d consider dropping the charges against him.”

“Will you?” Mitch asked, holding his breath.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told your brother. I’m not about to prosecute a man who was integral in breaking up a major East Coast drug-running operation. Especially when that man had the guts to come here and confess his own crime.” He paused. “Your brother wasn’t as circumspect as you. He admitted to lifting cash from the register.”

“He didn’t mean to,” Mitch said. “He only did it because Gibbs was exerting pressure on him to pay back a loan.”

“Relax,” Peyton’s father said. “I already said I wouldn’t prosecute him.”

Mitch let out a relieved breath. “Thank you, Sir.”

“Tommy Mac,” the solicitor corrected.

“Tommy Mac, then,” Mitch said. “But you might not want me to call you that after I tell you the other reason I came here.”

“You want an apology, don’t you?” Amelia said. “I suppose we should give you one, but how were we to know you weren’t your brother?”

“My brother’s a good man,” Mitch said again. “But I don’t want an apology. I want to talk about Peyton.”

Amelia slanted an unfathomable look at her husband, who seemed to instantly understand her message. He nodded once, as though giving her permission to speak for both of them.

“Tommy and I have decided not to stand in your way,” she said. “We still think Peyton would be happier if she married a Charlestonian, but this business with Gaston taught us that even Charlestonians aren’t infallible.”

“I’m not asking for permission to marry your daughter,” Mitch said, although he would have liked to. Under the circumstances, what would be the point? “I’m asking you to take a good, hard look at Peyton.

“She loves making Charleston come alive for the tourists who take her carriage tours. She doesn’t want to be a socialite. She wants to use her trust fund to buy the business. And I think the both of you should stop standing in her way.”

Amelia sighed, a reaction Mitch didn’t understand until the solicitor spoke up. “You’re a little late on that one, too, young fellow,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“Peyton told us the same thing last night. She made an offer to buy the business today. It should be hers by the end of next month.”

Walking to his SUV a little while later, the irony of the situation struck Mitch as hard as the stiff breeze from the sea.

He’d truly believed he was the only one who could get the charges against Cary dropped just as he’d thought Peyton’s parents would never stop ordering her around unless he instructed them to.

Neither of those beliefs proved to be valid.

Cary and Peyton had solved their own problems without the help he thought was so vital. Could it be possible that Peyton was right? Was he so accustomed to protecting the people he loved that he had crossed the line from protective to controlling? Is that why he’d gone to such lengths to get Cary out of his impossible jam? Is that why he hadn’t trusted Peyton enough to tell her who he was?

He covered his face with his hands, because he already knew the answers to all of those questions. There remained one last question, which was more important to him than all the rest, and only one woman could answer it.

Would Peyton ever forgive him?

PEYTON BREATHED IN THE familiar scent of hay and horseflesh as she finished hitching a sweet-tempered draft horse to a sleek, French-style carriage.

Aside from a stable hand who was mucking out one of the stalls, she was alone inside the large, airy stable that butted up against the Dixieland Carriage Tours office.

She reveled in the peace. Classical music drifted through the air-conditioned building, the better to soothe the horses and make life more pleasant for them until the next work day.

Peyton’s day wasn’t yet over. In a few minutes she was due to give a private, nighttime tour of Charleston, no doubt to a man bent on romancing his lady with the sights, scents and sounds of a city that retained its old-world charm.

Big Nellie, the draft horse she’d hitched to the carriage, stamped her feet and nickered. Peyton laughed and walked over to the horse who came by her name honestly. She weighed a solid two thousand pounds.

“You want some attention, do you, big girl?” She stroked the horse’s neck, looking around her at the rows of stalls and assortment of carriages as she did so. “Can you believe this place is going to be all mine?”

Big Nellie nickered again and Peyton laid her face against the soft smoothness of her neck.

“I know it’s hard to believe, Big Nellie,” she said. “You’re probably wondering where I got the courage to go against everything my parents always wanted for me to go after what I wanted for myself. I wonder that myself.”

The horse stamped her foot, causing Peyton to draw back. Big Nellie’s large, liquid eye seemed to look into her soul. Peyton sighed.

“Okay, you’re right. I know where I got the courage. If Mitch hadn’t come into my life, I wouldn’t have developed the strength to become my own person.”

Not wanting to be on the receiving end of any more of the horse’s penetrating looks, Peyton gave Big Nellie a final pat and hoisted herself into the driver’s seat of the carriage.

She tried to ignore the hollow feeling that had plagued her since she’d banished Mitch from her life two nights before, but she couldn’t any longer. The inside of her body was so empty it would make a perfect echo chamber.

“I’m supposed to be happy,” she said aloud, gesturing at the stable. “My dream of owning this place is about to come true.”

“But you’re not happy, are you?” she asked herself.

Oh, great. Now she was not only having conversations with horses, but with herself. That’s what she got for being too pig-headed to allow herself to understand why Mitch had gone to such lengths to protect not only her but his brother as well.

“It’s because,” she said with sudden insight, “he cares so deeply for the people he loves.”

Yes, he was overprotective and overbearing. And yes, he’d carried the charade too far. But he’d done so out of love. He’d done so because he loved
her
. And she’d thrown that love away out of pique.

“Do you know what, Big Nellie?” she asked the horse, having decided talking to one of God’s creatures was preferable to chatting with herself. “I’m a fool.”

Big Nellie whinnied and shuffled her big body, but this time Peyton didn’t think the horse was trying to convey anything besides her agitation to get going.

Peyton picked up the reins, for once not experiencing the thrill she got before giving a tour. The night was cool and lit by the moon, the perfect setting for a carriage ride, but Peyton was anxious to get it over with so she could find Mitch. If he hadn’t left the city yet, that is.

She slackened the reins, and Big Nellie clip-clopped out of the stable, out of habit moving to the exact spot where tourists mounted the carriages.

A familiar, dark-haired man waited on the sidewalk, eyes that Peyton knew were blue focused on her.

“Mitch,” she whispered to herself. The carriage moved inexorably forward, closer and closer until Peyton could see that MITCH was printed in large red letters on his white T-shirt.

“Hey, Peyton,” he said when the carriage slowed to a stop. He didn’t wait for her to greet him in return but instead stepped onto one of the footholds and swung himself into the carriage, not into the back where most customers typically sat but next to her. Instantly, the entire left side of her body flooded with heat and the world seemed reduced to the two of them.

She cleared her suddenly clogged throat. “I’m expecting a customer.”

“That’d be me,” he said as though he reserved private carriages every day of the week. “Shall we go?”

She shot a glance at him but he was looking straight ahead, as though in eager anticipation of the tour. Irritation shot through her. Here she was agonizing over the wrong she’d done him and he wanted a history lesson.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked.

She scowled and set Big Nellie into motion. The carriage company was located a few blocks from the city’s market area so she began her spiel.

“Soon we’ll be coming up on the Old City Market, which a wealthy old-town family willed to the town of Charleston in the mid-1800s with the stipulation that it be used as a public market. It features shops, restaurants and—”

“I’m sure the market has a colorful history, but I don’t want to hear about it,” Mitch interrupted.

She gave him an unfriendly stare. “Well, then, we’re not too far from St. Philip’s Episcopal Church over on Church Street. It used to be known as the Light House Church, because from its steeple shone a light to help guide ships into the harbor. In its graveyard is buried John C. Calhoun and—”

He didn’t let her finish. “I don’t want to hear about guys who died two hundred years ago.”

“More like a hundred and sixty,” she snapped, then let out a breath. “So what do you want me to tell you about?”

“I don’t want you to talk. I want you to listen.”

“That’s not what a tour guide usually does.”

“I thought a tour guide did what the customer wanted.” He laid his fingers against her lips before she could protest. “And this customer wants to apologize to the woman he loves for not believing in her enough to tell her who he was.”

His fingers fell away from her mouth, which dropped open. “He does?”

“Oh, yeah.” The moon was bright enough that she could see the regret in his eyes. “I was an overbearing jerk, Peyton, just like you said.”

He ran a hand over his forehead. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I stopped by your house last night to convince your parents to start treating you like an adult. Funny thing, though. You’d already told them that yourself.

“It got me to thinking that since I came to town, I never stopped to give you any credit for being able to stand up for yourself.”

“Maybe that was because I couldn’t stand up for myself until I met you,” Peyton said. “Oh, Mitch. I’m the one who should apologize. One of the reasons I love you so much is that you care so deeply for the people you love.”

“You still love me?” he asked.

She nodded. “I never stopped. Don’t get me wrong. I still think you’re overbearing and I still want you to lighten up.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “But not too much.”

He drew her into his arms and kissed her under the glow of the Charleston moon. They didn’t pull apart until they heard applause. A group of foreigners were standing on the sidewalk, smiling and pointing, as though at another tourist attraction.

Peyton laughed and waved. “Come see me tomorrow,” she called to them. “Mention the kiss and I’ll give you a discount.”

“Spoken like a true entrepreneur,” Mitch said, smiling at her as Big Nellie trudged determinedly on.

Peyton chewed on her bottom lip as a terrible thought intruded on her happiness, but the decision she made was instantaneous.

“I’d like to stay in Charleston,” she said, her voice low. “But you’re more important to me than a place. If you can’t leave Atlanta, then I’ll move there.”

“Are you kidding? And leave God’s country?” He pulled her against his side. “It’s you I can’t leave, Peyton. I won’t have to. I already have a job offer from the Charleston police chief. And, believe this or not, the blessing of your parents.”

He told her about what else had transpired during his visit to her parents. They were at the Battery before Peyton asked Mitch the question that had been on her mind since she’d spotted him outside the carriage company.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re wearing that shirt?”

He grinned and shrugged. “I wanted you to be sure which brother you were dealing with.”

“You thought I needed your name stenciled in six-inch letters for that?”

He cocked his head. “Don’t you?”

Peyton laughed, drawing back from him so she could look into his face. “Of course I don’t. I fell in love with you, Mitch, not Cary. Now that I know you’re an identical twin, it’s stunning how easy it is to tell you apart.”

She could see the differences in the set of his shoulders, the slant of his mouth and in the very essence of the man. Mitch had a natural confidence his brother didn’t yet possess.

“That’s a good thing,” Mitch said, grinning. “Cary’s not quite ready to ask Lizabeth to marry him, but she is moving to Charleston. If he asks her soon, I was wondering what you’d think about a double wedding.”

“Grant Mitchell,” she said, tracing the line of his hard jaw. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Yes.” He took her by the shoulders and gazed deep into her eyes. “But only if you promise not to get the grooms confused when you say, ‘I do.’”